19 A2+ dangerous and dirty jobs

CHAPTER 1 Terrible Jobs? WHAT ARE SOME JOBS YOU REALLY DON'T WANT TO DO? Some people do jobs that most of us wouldn't like jobs that are dirty, hard, dangerous, or boring. These jobs are often important, but that doesn't mean they're pleasant to do. Who thinks, "I want to be a garbage collector"? But we really need garbage collectors. People in Naples, Italy, learned that the hard way. Garbage workers there decided to strike in December 2007. By May 2008, there were 200 million kilograms of garbage on the streets!

And what about sewer workers? Many of us think that must be a horrible job. But the sewers under a city take away dirty water and body waste. They make city life possible. We really need sewers to work, so we really need sewer workers! Other jobs might be dirty and dangerous. Firefighters can be burned in fires or have to clean up dangerous chemicals after an accident. Very often, people who do dirty and dangerous jobs don't earn a lot of money. But sometimes the dirty or dangerous parts are also what make the job interesting! So what do you want from a job? Does it have to be interesting? Well paid? Safe? Clean? Maybe you want your job to be all those things. If so, you probably don't want any of the jobs we're going to look at here. But at the end of the book, you'll have to choose the one you prefer. So think about each job as you read.

CHAPTER 2 Fish Gutter DO YOU LIKE FISH? MAYBE YOU WON'T AFTER DOING THIS JOB! How would you like to spend your time gutting fish— cleaning out their insides? Fish are very smelly, and after work, you'll smell bad, too! Every day, boats bring thousands of fish to a factory in Dillingham, Alaska. Students from all over the world come there to work. There are many different nationalities and they speak a lot of different languages. Mache Kazubovsky is a student from Poland. He paid a company $3,000 to find him the job here. He hopes to make $6,000 and travel across America. The factory doesn't pay much for an hour's work, so he works 16 hours a day.

Hoy-Juhw is from China. She's studying to be a teacher. She likes to travel, too. "I want to see New York and Washington, the most famous cities," she explains. Nancy Blakey owns the factory. She's very pleased with her foreign students. She says they're smart and work hard. Brad Gillespy isn't so pleased. He works for the Alaskan government and wants Nancy to give more jobs to locals— people who live in the area. Nancy says that local people don't want to do this work. Maybe the factory doesn't pay enough. Long hours, low pay, taking out fish guts that stink and look horrible... Is this a job you might want to do?

CHAPTER 3 Zoo Keeper WORKING WITH ANIMALS IS A GREAT JOB, RIGHT? WELL, NOT ALWAYS. Do you think zoo keepers feed elephants and play with monkeys all the time? Think again. Neil Dretzka and Chris John work with the big cats (lions, tigers, and others) at Milwaukee County Zoo, USA. They begin their day by checking that no animals have gotten in from outside, or out from inside. "A truck could break a big window and a tiger could get out," explains Neil. After that, the job gets dirtier for Neil and Chris. Neil has to clean the tiger enclosure. He picks up hair, food, and body waste. Tigers eat meat, so their waste is very smelly! He also looks for uneaten meat or for blood that may show an animal is sick.

Lastly, Neil washes the floor and picks up a large, dirty hairball. It's no surprise that he always wears gloves! During this time, Chris looks at the animals' food. He checks 30 kilos of cold, bloody meat. "When the food's prepared," he says, "things can get in it. One time, I found a dangerous piece of broken plastic." The keepers also help the veterinarians— doctors who look after the animals. Like hospital nurses, they see and smell some very unpleasant things. It can be dangerous to be a zoo keeper, too. In 2012, a tiger killed a worker at the Cologne Zoo, in Germany. And at the Pittsburgh Zoo, in the USA, a worker was killed by an elephant. Do you still want to be a zoo keeper?